Saturday, September 22, 2007

INSIDE POLITICS - ANOTHER COLUMN DEVOTED TO THE MAN IN THE ANORAK

On Politics
Harry McGee
The best quote of the week about the Tribunal came from a woman who did a vox-pop for radio on Thursday.

“If Bertie Ahern fell into the Liffey,” she said, “he would come out of the water dry.”

There was a sense that Bertie Ahern performed much better on his third day in the witness box. The reason for that was that he stood his ground. He conceded no inch of territory without putting up a fight. He also jostled for position with Des O’Neill, not allowing the Tribunal lawyer all his own way in dictating what questions would be put and how Ahern’s answers would be framed.

And the answers? Every time he spoke a thick fog descended on the armoury room in Dublin castle. Once you began wading into it you were hopelessly lost. Ahern gave a masterful display of incoherence, using all the tricks in his bag including sentences without subjects or objects, often without verbs and sometimes with six or seven different clauses, none of which were related to each other. And in all that fog you couldn’t see your hand in front of you… or in Bertiespeak, you wouldn’t be seeing if you weren’t looking at all for your hand, or the other way around. (Miriam Lord captured this wonderfully in her column in the Irish Times yesterday)

There’s a theory that’s doing the rounds that it doesn’t really matter how Bertie fares in the Tribunal. Even if they rip him apart, there’s a big disconnect between what smart lawyers and smartass journalists think and what Joe public out there thinks.

There are several pieces of evidence to back it up. Exhibit A is the opinion poll from last autumn that showed Ahern’s popularity went up after the story about his finances first broke. Exhibit B is the General Election which Fianna Fail won (and handily) despite the first two weeks being dominated by Ahern’s finances.

This week Charlie Bird mused that all of the detail might be going over the heads of ordinary people. And on Thursday morning the political commentator and former Fianna Fail candidate Noel Whelan suggested on RTE radio that the only real political implication it would have for Ahern is that it was taking, and would take up, a considerable chunk of his time.

That was extraordinary by any standards. It’s an inconvenience and nothing more. It doesn’t matter about him being economical with the verité. It does’t matter either that there’s a whiff of sulphur surrounding his personal finances. Because the counter-argument goes: It’s Bertie we’re talking about here. The anorak man. As honest as the day as long. Into his beers and matches.

And no matter how incontrovertible the evidence, his adoring public won’t allow him to be knocked from that pedestal.

Personally, I’ve had mixed feelings as I’ve watched the action slowly unfold. For the first two days of evidence, Des O’Neill presented a laboriously slow but effective case that Ahern hadn’t been as co-operative with the Tribunal as he had suggested. It’s now clear he produced some of the evidence only when he had to.

For example, as late as April this year he accepted for the very first time that there were two big sterling transactions. His acceptance came after the Tribunal presented conclusive evidence to him that he’s lodged £30,000 in sterling into two accounts in 1995.

It was only then – in April this year – that he began to tell the story about him using money out of £50,000 he withdraw in January of 1995 to buy the £30,000 in sterling he later lodged into the accounts.

Last week, I thought certain media people made a rush to judgment saying it was death by a thousand cuts etc. I was inclined to agree with Judge Feargus Flood’s view that the Tribunal will ultimately make no major adverse finding of wrongdoing against Ahern. I think though that he won’t be spared from criticism, and maybe very severe criticism.

But this week was different. When the consensus was he was doing better, to me Thursday afternoon was his nadir. And the reason? I just can’t buy his story about the £30,000 sterling, Not in April when he came up with it and not now – especially not now when he’s chopping and changing his story so often. And his telling of it has been shabby.

That was a massive sum back then. And there are no records in AIB of any such transaction. On Thursday he offered a brand new explanation. It could have been exchanged in another bank, or maybe in no bank at all. Or he could have got somebody to do it for him. And as he was travelling all over the country, it could have happened anywhere. Or it could have been done by instalments.

It was breath-taking stuff and covered all bases and eventualities. Does it matter? Of course it does if you care about integrity, credibility and honesty. But will it matter? Apparently not. No matter how much of a soaking they give him, Anorak Man will always emerge dry.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lord Denning on the Burden of Proof:

" Proof beyond reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond the shadow of a doubt. The law would fail to protect the community if it admitted fanciful possibilities to deflect the course of justice. If the evidence is so strong against a man as to leave only a remote possibility in his favour which can be dismissed with the sentence 'of course it is possible but not in the least probable' the case is proved beyond reasonable doubt, but nothing short of that will suffice."

Miller v Minister of Pensions [1942] 2 All ER 372.

Gabriel said...

I like your comments on politics in the Examiner, though I do not always agree with you.I like your blog and I feel we share sufficient common ground for a link to each others blogs to be mutually beneficial.If you agree to link then please contact me at 'An Unrepentant Communist'

http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/

on the commments page of the current post,and I will immediately link your blog to mine.Looking forward to hearing from you.
Gabriel in County Kerry Ireland

Anonymous said...

The tribunal are seeking the truth. Bertie Ahern is not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

At some point, Mahon has to tell Bertie to cop on. It worked for Dunlop.

Tomaltach said...

Harry, your last word is the crux: will it matter, apparently not.

What does it say about our national attitude towards corruption when opposition parties look away during an election campaign when questions arise about the incumbent taking bundles of cash from businessmen? They looked away for fear of being punished.

I see no evidence therefore that the Tribunals, for all their drama, for all lard built up on lawyer buttocks, I see no evidence that we are anymore concerned about ethics in high office than we were 20 years ago when this place was rotten to the core.

That is why I argue the Tribunals are a waste of time and money.

Darren J. Prior said...

"Every time he spoke a thick fog descended on the armoury room in Dublin castle. Once you began wading into it you were hopelessly lost. Ahern gave a masterful display of incoherence, using all the tricks in his bag including sentences without subjects or objects, often without verbs and sometimes with six or seven different clauses, none of which were related to each other."

Well-put!!!